Square Enix's "Nier" was originally Xbox 360 exclusive

Mike Luttrell, 24th May 2010

Here's a change of the tides - Square Enix, which decided to turn the PS3-exclusive Final Fantasy XIII into a multiplatform game, has now placed an Xbox 360 exclusive on the PS3.
On a Japanese video game news site, Inside Games, Square Enix executive producer Yosuke Saito was quoted as saying, "We were initially planning an Xbox 360 target, which we expanded to PS3 multiplatform afterward," according to a translation from the blog TheSilentChief.com

This is hardly a coup on the same scale as when Square Enix decided to port the long-assured PS3 exclusive Final Fantasy XIII to the Xbox 360. Nier is a heavy, intense RPG that will undoubtedly sell much better on the 360 anyway, in the US.

However, in Japan, the PS3 version of Nier has sold over 100,000 copies, while the Xbox 360 SKU has barely made a dent. It speaks to how wildly different the hardware market is between the US and Japan.

Square Enix had had a long-standing partership with Sony to bring all numbered Final Fantasy games to Playstation consoles but it was seen as breaking that commitment when Final Fantasy XIII was pushed back in the US to allow the company to offer the game simultaneously on the Xbox 360. However, the publisher has a long history of providing exclusives to every gaming platform. And it is trying to blur its previous allegiances completely.

It's a safe bet now that all big-name Square Enix game announcements will be multi-platform.